If you're like me, you started your journey with the purchase of your Jive Software licenses with a fantastic Jive Strategy Consulting Engagement.

They helped you with your social business strategy.

They told you needed a community manager.

They even gave you some sample job descriptions and tips to get started.

But if you're also like me - you hunted and searched for anything you could find to learn how to be a Stellar Community Manager. And no courses could be found.

We all know you can find and install the best tool in the marketplace (ahem, like Jive Software) but your project could still fail if you don't plan and manage it well. But to date there was very little training to help someone manage a community well. With the explosion of social business and community management, it became clear to many of us that a new set of skills, competencies and language was required. Many, like myself, had approached Rachel Happe of The Community Roundtable asking for resources and wondering whether it was time to start creating and promoting a standard of excellence of our own for Community Management.

Well now the hard work of Rachel Happe, Jim Storer, and other members of The CR (some of us even Jive Customers!) has finally paid off. After a year of input from its members and partnership with WOMMA and ComBlu, those aspiring to be Community Managers, or those who want to polish their skills now have a training program to take.

There were over 200 graduates of Module One: Community Specialist in this program. Don't be left behind in keeping your skills sharp, be sure to register to join Module Two!

Just announced April 2012 - Community Manager Training - Module Two

(re-posted from registration site to cross-promote)

A Community Manager is a more senior position that can serve as the primary “face” of the community, which may include some moderation duties. In addition, the Community Manager will also own the business goals and techniques. There will be some overlap with the Chief Community Officer in smaller organizations.

In this module attendees will get an overview & history of how community initiatives have matured and will learn the strategy development and implementation to running a community from hiring the right team to becoming "the face" of your community. Participants will obtain detailed knowledge of online engagement, listening, measurement and much more!

For more details on WOMM COM Community Management Module Two and a full description of the WOMM COM Community Management Program click HERE.

Objectives - Learn about

Understanding the market, organizational, and member context

Engaging in and moderating conversations online

Social tools

Content development and management

Metrics and measuring engagement

Strategy, leadership, and culture

Schedule:

This course will be delivered online in a series of 10 one-hour webinars over the course of 6 weeks.

Days: Sessions will be held every Tuesday and Thursday from May 15 - June 21

Time: 12 pm - 1 pm ET / 11 am - 12pm CT / 9 am - 10 am PT

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Message was edited by: Claire Flanagan Thursday April 5, 2012 with updates on newly announced Module Two

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Categories: Community Management, Best Practices and Guidelines, Adoption, Community Marketing

The Community Specialist Role is the first "module" that's being offered right now. (I know the other two are in the final stages of development.)

The other modules will address the additional roles. And yes, it's expected that not everyone will take all three . The Community Roundtable members are helping with training content for this series. If you're interested in learning more or getting involved - learn more about The CR here http://community-roundtable.com/what-we-do .

I'd start with this one first for sure. There are fundamentals in this course that any Community Manager should have in their repertoire. Think of this as a skill building pyramid where the first course builds the fundamentals and goes up the stack in terms of higher level skills or strategies.

Community Specialist begins with community leadership fundamentals. This will target individual contributors working on social and community initiatives. The course covers both contextual topics like market trends, strategy, and culture as well as specific tactical responsibilities related to content development, moderation, enforcing policies, and measuring success.

Community Management will be the next module offered. This will target someone who is in a more mid-level/senior position, serves as the "face" of the community and might own broader business goals.

Community Strategist will be the final module offered. This will target someone who is at a very senior position and is responsible for a social business or community program/strategy for a company or large organization. The role focuses on establishing the vision, building the business case and championing the broad use of social and community across business units.

My thoughts?

Even though at my company I might be in the community strategist role, I intend on taking all three - fully expecting that all the content and training in the lower tiers should be core skills in my repertoire.

It's possible that someone might only want to take the first module (Community Specialist)

It's also possible that someone might only want to take the first two (Community Specialist and Community Manager).

The courses are virtually delivered and they're delivered by smart people doing this at real brands. So the networking and benchmarking opportunity is also rich here as well.

Now to one of your other questions - tier 2 and 3 won't be offered until this one is completed. Don't quote me, because it's not my program (I've just been a input in the curriculum). I'm quite sure you won't see the second module start until later in the Spring and then the last module won't be offered till the Fall.

Once this first complete series of all three modules is complete (this year) - it will be easier to repeat the modules more frequently. Or at least that's my guess.

I would try to follow the link to the Womma site and see if there's a way to be notified of upcoming courses. I'll try to remember to come back here and post a comment if I see it offered again. I know it will be, but I just don't know the timing.

Just updated the page above with Module Two information that just got announced this week. Module One was an incredibly well run series of courses all delivered by practitioners and peers in a variety of industries. I'm looking forward to registering for this one as well!